The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1887-05-18

| into the QUICK. Inc carpet, IlaU was E,lalIi
before, will be palmer after having wandered wandered
| halls Of castles. And your industrious com
panion will be more unattractive than ever,
now that you have walked in the romance
| through parks with plumed princesses, OF
| lounged in the arbor with the polished deSpe
RADIO. Oh. these confirmed novel readers
! They are untitled for this life, which is ire
mendous discipline. They know not how to
go through the furnaces Of trial through
which they must pass, and they are untitled
| for world where everything we gain we
achieve by hard, long-continuing and e1-
haustive work.
Again: abstain from all those books which,
while they have some good things about them,
have also an admi1ture Of evil. You have
the good and the bad. Which stuck to youl
The bad! The heart of most people is like q
sieve, which lets the small particles of gold
fall through, but keeps the great clnders.
Once in a while there is a mind like load
stone, which, plunged amid steel and brass
filings, gathers up the steel and repels the
brass. But it is generally just the opposite:
If you attempt to plunge through hedge OF
more burrs than blackberries. You cannot
afford to read bad book, however good you
are. You say: 'The influence is insignih-
can't" I tell you that the scratch of a pin
has sometimes produced the lock-j Alas, if
through curiosity, as many do you pry into an
evil book, your curiosity is as dangerous as
that of the man who would take torch into
q gunpowder mill merely to see whether it
would blow up or not. In menagerie in
New York, man put bis arm through Une
bars of black leopards cage. The anlmaIs
hide looked so sleek, and bright, and beautiful:
He just stroked it once. The monster seized
him, and he drew forth hand torn, ana
of vii
with the faintest stroke. Though it may
be glossy and beautiful, touch it not, lest you
pull forth your soul torn and bleeding under
the clutch of the black leopard. But, you
say, show can find out whether book IS
good or bad without reading it:' There is
always something suspicious about PAD
book. never knew an exception-sometnmg
suspicious in the index or style Of Illustration.
This venomous reptile almost always carrlesa
warning rattle.
Again:I I charge you to stand off from all
those books which corrupt the imagination
and inflame the passions. do not refer now
to that kind of q book which the villain has
under his coat waiting for the school to get
out, and then, looking both ways TO see IhaG
here is no policeman around the block, ohers
:he book to your son on his way home. 40
not speak of that kind Of literature, but that
which evades the law and comes out in pollshed
style, and with acute plot SOUNDS the tocsln that
rouses up all the baser passions OF the soul.
To-day under the nostrilS of this land, there
is fetid, reeking unwashed literature,
enough to poison all the fountains OF pubic
virtue, and smite your sons and daughterS as
with the wing of destroying angel, and 1t IS
time that the ministers of the Gospel oiew
the trumpet and rallied the forces OF right
eousness, all armed to the teeth, in this great
battle against depraved literature.
Again: abstain from those books which are
apologetic Of crime. 1t is sad thing that
some of the best and most beautiful book
bindery, and some of the finest rhetoric have
been brought to make sin attractive. Vice IS
a horrible thing any how. tits born In shame,
and it dies bowling in the darkness. In this
world it is scourged with whip of scorpions,
but afterwards the thunders Of Gods wrath
pursue it across boundless desert, beating 1T
with ruin and woe Whenyo come to paint
carnality, do not paint it as looking from be-
hind embroidered curtains, or through lattice
of royal seraglio, but as writhing In the
agonies of city hospital.
Cursed be the books that try to make Inn.
purity decent, and crime attractive, and
hypocrisy noble! Cursed be the books that
swarm with libertiues and desperadoes, who
make the brain of the young people whlrl
with villainy. Ye authors who write them,
We publishers who print them, ye booksellers
who distribute them, shall be cut to pieces, If
not by an aroused community, then at last
by the hail of Divine vengeance, which shall
sweep to the lowest pit of perdition all ye
Inurderers of souls. I tell you, though you
ground at last under the hoof Of eternal
calamities, and you will be chained to the
rock, and you will have the yultures OF de-
spair clawing at your soul, and those whom
YOU have DESTROYED will come around to tor
ment you, and to pour hotter Goals of fury
upon Your head, and rejoice eternally in the
outcry of your pain and the howl of your
"God shall wound the hairy scalp
of him that goeth on in his trespasses."
The clock strikes midnight. A fair form
bends over a romance. The eyes flash fire.
The breath is quick and irregular. Occasion
ally the color dashes into the cheek, and then
dies out. The hands tremble as though
guardian spirit were trying to shake the
deadly book out of the grasp. Hot tears fall.
She laughs with a shrill voice that drops dead
at its own sound. The sweat on her brow IS
the spray dashed up from the river OF death.
The clock strikes "four," and the rosy dawn
upon the pale form that looks like detained
spectre of the night. Soon, in madhouse,
she will mistake her ringlets for curling ser
pents, and thrust her white hand through the
bars of the prison and Smite her head, rub
bing it back as though to push the scalp from
the skull, shrieking: "My brain! my brain"
Oh, stand off from that! Why will you 60
your way amid the reefs and warn
ing buoys when there is such vast ocean in
which you may voyage all sail sets
There is one other thing shall say this
before 1 leave you, whether you
want to hear it Or not. That is, that l con-
slider the lascivious pictorial literature of the
day as most tremendous for ruin. There is no
one who can like good pictures better than
do. The quickest and most condensed way
of impressng the public mind is by picture.
What the painter does by his brush for few |
favorites, the engraver does by his knife |
for the million. What the author accomp-
fishes by fifty pages, the artist does by
fash. The best part OF painting that costs
ten thousand dollars you may buy for ten
cents. Fine paintings belong to the aristo-
democracy of art. You do well to gather
good pictures in your homes. Spread them
before your children, after the tea-hour IS
past, and the evening circle is gathered.
Throw them on the invalids couch. Strew
them through the rail-train to cheer the trav-
eler on his Journey Tack them on the wall
of the nursery Gather them in albums and
portfolios, God speed the good pictures on
their way with ministries OF knowledge and
mercy! i
But what shall I say Of the prostitution Of
this art to purposes of iniquity? These death
warrants Of the soul are at every street cor
ner. They slnite the vision of the young man
with pollution Many young man buying a
COPY has bought his eternal discontinue:
There may be enough poison in one bad
picture to poison one soul; and that
soul may poison ten, and ten fifty,
and the fifty hundreds, and the hundreds
thousands. until nothing but the measuring